Yooper Vacation Day 2, Tahquamenon Falls State Park

After Whitefish Point Hal and I headed on over to see the falls that we'd visited several years earlier but which I don't really remember except for mosquitoes and taking a ferryboat to the location. We had to buy mosquito repellent on the boat and then had to walk from the boat down a series of ramps/stairs to the falls. The guy walking in front of me had no shirt on and was covered in mosquitoes but I don't remember seeing the falls at all. Very weird.

This time we drove to lower Tahquamenon Falls first, parked by the gift shop/park station and followed the trail to various lookouts.

Then we walked further up the river to Upper Tahquamenon Falls.

On the way we met several people walking back saying we'd just missed a kayaker go deliberately over the falls. Apparently there were 3 of them doing this since Labor Day. (This was the day after). However, they were not done and we got to see 3 of them do it. I managed to get shots of the blue one.

Here is a shot of the falls showing the scale of the drop. The kayaker at the base is the one I missed. We were further away when I took these shots.

 Here is the third kayaker we saw take the plunge.

It was a very fun part of our trip. When we got back to the parking lot we decided to have supper at the Tahquamenon Falls Brewery at Camp 33 which butted right up to the park buildings. Apparently there was an old logging site (camp 33) not owned by the state and the brewery bought it and built a very large nice brew pub. I had whitefish. It was very tasty. The beer was pretty good, too. If I remember the name I'll post it. I think it was called Sundog or something similar.

And here is one more shot of Hal because I can't get enough of those. Walking up the stairs from the upper falls.

Kayaked Today - I'm Exhausted

For the first time since last summer and Uncle Butch's stroke. Besides myself and Uncle Butch his 2 daughters were there and a granddaughter. Also 6 children. One daughter has a health issue and could not help in getting her dad into and out of the kayak. Things went pretty well for a while then suddenly Uncle Butch went off kilter and into the water he went. Of course, he did this in a mucky bottom deeper section and since he refused to wear his PFD standing him back up in the current and corralling his boat and paddle while keeping ourselves from falling out or losing our paddles was an experiment in managed chaos. His daughter_in_law also tried to help but she was holding her 20 month old baby.

During all this one of the younger boys in his own kayak started crying because he was suddenly alone and floating downstream. We finally convinced his mom to leave us and go "save" him. (Incidentally, all the kids wore their PFDs).

In the end, some tubers came over and helped out by picking up his kayak and his daughter's to empty the water out and re-float them. (Her kayak had filled up when she jumped out to rescue him.)

Other than that little incident the trip itself was nice. The day was hot, blue sky, big clouds, very pretty. We were supposed to leave for the river at 10, didn't get on the road till 11:21, and didn't get to the water's edge till 1:21. We didn't get off the water till 5:30 and not back to the house till a little after 7 pm. Longest kayaking day I've ever had for what is normally a 2.5 hour water trip.

It's possibly the only time I'll be able to get on the water this year though, so I'll try to remember the good parts.

Another River Trip

About 85 degrees, clear blue sky, light breeze. So 3 of my little kayak group got together for another short trip, about 2.25 hours down the Au Sable from McKinley Landing to the 4001 Bridge. Lots of canoes and tubes today. Quite a few fishermen too. Consequently, there weren't many wildlife viewing opportunities with all the people. We did see a couple different flocks of ducklings. Otherwise only a couple seagulls and a crow.

Felt really good to be on the river though after all the coop/run building of the past couple of weeks. Of course, I still have 2 more coop walls to paint but there are only so many perfect days on the river available. Have to make the most of it.

Bits and Pieces

Moved the 4.5 chicks and 3 guineas into the garage today. They were getting a bit large for the TV box in the dining room. Plus the guineas were getting very vocal and that is very annoying while watching TV. Chick 0.5 is still alive though I am not sure how. His head and feet are larger, he's getting feathers, but weighs next to nothing. He refuses to give up and won't let me keep him in a box by himself to prevent him being stepped on. I can't imagine he can live much longer. The other chicks are 4 times his size now. Today one of the guineas got out of his box and Hal found him sitting on a jar on the dining room table. Fortunately, the guinea was easy to catch, possibly in shock as to the size of things outside the box.

Hal also added the man door to the coop today and began work on the chicken door. Not easy working outside when it keeps raining. We've had a lot of rain the past few weeks. Not as much as other parts of the Midwest but more than enough.

Tomorrow my best friend from high school will be arriving for a one week visit. I have no idea what we'll be doing though I hope we'll have better weather. The predicted temps for tomorrow are in the 50s, in June! I hope that doesn't last long, I'm betting we'll want to go kayaking while she's here. Yesterday I paddled on the lake for the first time this year with a woman I met on a paddling message board. She was up for the weekend and we were able get in a couple hours even though there were pop up thunderstorms all afternoon. We had to take shelter at the island when the first one came up very fast. It's very "interesting" watching lightening strikes from the edge of the water. I don't recommend it as a regular pastime.

I doubt I'll have much free time to post anything for the next week. Of course, I haven't been very consistent thus far so I don't know why I bother mentioning it.